A Gunman Rode North

by William Hopson

  Nobody but a bronco Apache chieftain would have thought of it.

  Kerrigan forced the big red horse to greater speed. He was trapped in the gulch with whoever else was in it, and at the moment he didn't know how they were going to get out of it. He heard a high scream somewhere back there in the flames.

  Some unfortunate devil had paid the price for staggering home from the whiskey dive and falling into bed in a drunken slumber.

  Judge Eaton and Harrow had stepped across the deeply rutted street at a sharp angle northward to enter the saloon. Around them in the night were the bold outlines of several two-story buildings, mostly stripped of furnishings. The hotel's front door stood wide open and lettered across it was a final message from the former owner, stroked with a sense of typical frontier humor: All beds free. Help yourselves, boys.

  Most of the eight or nine men in the place when Eaton and Harrow entered had done just that; making the place home, batching in the kitchen, and loafing in the dirty dive next door. Men enervated by the vicissitudes of bad luck at mining, bad luck at gambling, and drinking bad whiskey. Men who didn't care much any more.

  The owner of the place, a part-Cherokee fugitive from Indian Territory named Sam Blaze Face, looked up and grunted at sight of the two visitors. The law had taken many men out of his place during the past two years and he held no love for the judge because of what had happened to two of them. They'd been hanged. The Cherokee didn't like Harrow either. He'd promised to come back with big piles of money to sink shafts all over the mountains and find the mother lode from which flash floods had ripped loose particles of gold and deposited them along the floor of the gulch for thousands of years. He'd come back flat broke, so it was whispered.

  The Cherokee grunted again, and it bespoke his feelings, glaring belligerently over a thin sprinkling of black whiskers, the result of his mixture of white and Indian blood. The man who'd been cranking the mechanical music box had tired and the ex-Confederate who'd bellowed Jeb Stuart's favorite song was bent forward asleep across a domino table, bearded face buried in his arms. The place stank.

  "What's this, a holdup or are we goin' to have court?" the Cherokee asked sardonically.

  "Don't talk to me in that tone of voice," snapped Judge Eaton frigidly. "I'll remind you there is still law here."

  "Hell there is? Thought it had left this part of the country. Follered the people."

  "Take things slow, Sam," Harrow said. "I've got some more work for you boys."

  "They need it," Sam said succinctly. "Credit's run out, whiskey is about out, they spent all the money you paid 'em, so I'm about out, too. Out of business. What's up? That fellow Kerrigan give you another scare?"

  "No scare this time, Sam. He rode north from Pirtman this afternoon, got away from the officers. He headed here to burn this place tonight, and there's a five-hundred-dollar reward for any of you who grabs him alive. Alive, you understand."

  "Huh!" came the disdainful grunt from the Cherokee. He'd heard many rumors lately. Some of them had to be true. "Heard you ain't got five hundred dollars no more."

  Out in the street came the sound of a horse; a very tired horse judging from its broken, irregular stride. It stopped outside the front door and a man grunted as he dismounted. In the silence of men turning to see who the newcomer was Joe Stovers stepped through into the dim light from two smoky lamps with sooty globes.

  He looked as though he had been riding hard at a horse-killing pace, as indeed he had. He wore no badge now, and he fixed his gaze upon the two men.

  "You sons of bitches!" he stated bitterly. "You rotten, filthy, dirty-souled scoundrels! For the first time in my life I know what makes a man want to kill. I've handled some bad boys in my time but I never killed one for any reason. For two cents I'd start shooting now."

  He stepped to the end of the filthy bar where night flies buzzed up and came to rest on the smoky ceiling. "Sam, I haven't had a drink of liquor since before my wife died. Let me have a shot of that rotgut now. I'm tired and I need it."

  Eaton started to speak but changed his mind, remembering the stormy scene in Stovers' house when Joe had returned with a fresh horse and been informed that he no longer was an officer of the law. Any man, even one like Stovers, could be pushed to the breaking point, and the ex-lawman appeared to be on the verge of it now. Better let this grim man alone right now, the judge thought. Stovers was dangerous.

  He looked at the two with burning eyes. "I might not have almost killed a good horse and broke my own neck making the run here after the lock was finally pried off my log jail door," he said and slid a quarter on top of the bar. "But when I loped over to Clara's and found the place deserted I knew that somehow them womenfolks had got sucked into this mess. I wasn't thinking about you two. I knew the whole pack of you wouldn't be a match for Lew Kerrigan and that 'Pache Indian. You seen any sign of them?"

  "There's no fire in the gulch yet," Harrow said, "so we haven't seen them. But they'll show. Ace and Jeb Donnelly are up on top at my house—"

  He broke off and shot a startled glance at Judge Eaton. Stovers dropped the untasted whiskey and the glass clattered on the rubbish-littered floor as he bolted outside. The others ran out, pushing away to the opposite side of the street and looking up over the tops of the building. Shots had come from up there.

  "By God, I guess Kerrigan made the try and fell into a trap," Harrow said excitedly. "Knowing Jeb and Ace as I do, they probably got him—"

  "The hell they did!" screamed the Cherokee as sharp cries broke out. "Don't tell an Injun like me what's up there. Them's 'Paches!"

  "Loco's band," Tom Harrow said and men caught the sudden fear in his voice. It was always that way. Just mention the name of the "human tigers" and men who had seen firsthand evidence of their butchery turned cold inside.

  "Horses running," the judge said, listening. "Saunders and Jeb Donnelly must have caught them flat-footed when they approached the house and scattered them long enough to get outside to their horses. They're coming down the road now."

  Joe Stovers looked across the street to where three women stood near the stage, faces upturned to the windows beginning to blaze from the mansion. He turned and walked over to them.

  "Why, Joe, what are you doing up here?" Clara said in relieved tones. "We thought— Joe, what is it up there? What's happened?"

  "Just offhand I'd say it's Loco coming in to collect interest on an overdue bill Tom Harrow owes him. He's burning the mansion first and he'll probably not stop there. How he missed that coach and all of you in it I'll never know. Must have come in from the west."

  "They didn't plan this alone," Eaton said with conviction. "I see the fine hand of Kerrigan."

  "That's a lie," Clara exclaimed passionately. "How can you say such a thing? Haven't you and Harrow done enough to Lew already?"

  "Not as much as they'd like to, Clara," Joe Stovers spoke up grimly. "Eaton is crazy, Clara. I've always thought so. Now I'm certain of it."

  "Kerrigan was captured and then freed by Loco, wasn't he?" Eaton snapped back. "He came up here with one of the band, didn't he? It would have been easy to make contact with signal fires, wouldn't it? Of course he planned it!"

  "I don't give a damn who planned what," Sam the Cherokee replied. "Listen! Take a look down in the lower end of town. They're firing it to drive us out, and when we go we'll be pounced on and cut to pieces. Joe, you're the only man here I've got any respect for, even if you did allus make things rough for my customers. What's the best thing to do now?"

  "Here comes Ace and Jeb Donnelly with their shirttails flying," Stovers grunted as two running horses crashed their way in among the shacks and made the street.

  Donnelly hauled up hard on the bloody mouth of his white horse and almost flung himself from the saddle. He'd torn off the bandage and his hairy face was livid with fear.

  "Tom, Apaches all over the place!" he gasped out. "We were hid inside the house in the dark, waiting for Kerrigan to show, when about six of them rose right
up out of the ground and lit torches. We shot two of them and then broke for our horses."

  "They've fired the lower end of the town, in case you ain't noticed," Ace Saunders said to Stovers. "I told Kerrigan down in Pirtman I still had ice up and down my back after we saw 'em down south early this mornin'. I reckon right now it's froze cold and stiff." He seemed to see the three women for the first time and wheeled on Harrow. "What in God's name are those women doing here?" he asked savagely. "Who brought them?"

  "They wanted to come, and they're here," Harrow said coolly. "Nobody asked them to come."

  "Sam," Joe Stovers ordered, "Get over there and douse the lights in that dive of yourn. The rest of you inside quick and bar the doors."

  Harrow's three guards, including the coach driver, had come out of hiding and stood waiting uneasily. These men had stolen horses and been guilty of many other crimes where lack of courage would have been fatal. But they were scared now because of one word burning inside their thoughts: Apaches!

  "What about the coach and team?" the driver asked hoarsely. Stubb Holiday had driven that coach and Stubb was dead. Pete Orr had taken over the job and now Pete was dead, too. With a bunch of yelling Apaches coming up from the lower end of town at a run, the man was so frightened he barely could speak.

  "Leave them!" snapped Joe Stovers. "Inside everybody and douse the lights. All right, Sam!" he bellowed across the street. "Get set with that bunch of drunks and give 'em hell! Maybe we can get out of this thing yet."

  Ace Saunders scattered chairs provided for courtroom spectators in a run back into the judge's small kitchen and living quarters. The door was a good strong one and there were no windows. Judge Eaton had stipulated that when Harrow ordered the place built for him. His Honor had taken no chances of being shot to death some night as he slept in the single bunk.

  Ace slammed the bar into place and shoved in the safety peg. He turned to find Kitty standing in the curtained opening. He had bent to blow out the lamp but suddenly straightened and looked at her. She was trembling like a child.

  "No need to get scared," he said to her. "They ain't got us yet. Kerrigan talked to you in your room down at Pirtman, huh?"

  "You've got a badge on," she said.

  "Deputy U.S. Marshal," he grunted. "What did Kerrigan say?"

  "He said the sheriff is holding some cattle money for him. He wanted me to take some of it and go back East alone."

  "Then what are you doing up here tonight, Kitty?"

  "I came with Tom," she said simply.

  "After what he did to you, throwing you over to marry another woman?"

  "He's not going to marry her—ever. He's going to marry me."

  "And you believed him, of course," the gunman said savagely.

  "I'm not going back East!" Kitty cried out desperately.

  He bent and blew into the top of the lamp, plunging the room into darkness. "Stay in here," he said roughly, and thrust her aside. "Kerrigan and his bronco Apaches will be here any minute."

  He made his way back into the courtroom as the second lamp in there went out. He heard the crash of broken glass as Joe Stovers used his six-shooter barrel. Ace went over and knelt beside the sheriff at the opening. The drum of galloping hoofs shod in rawhide was coming closer now and the screams out there sounded like a pack of catamounts gone mad. Up on the hill, in plain view from the two windows, Harrow's magnificent home was a blazing inferno.

  "There goes a funeral pyre to the memory of Bear Paw Daly," Stovers said, his eyes on the distant fire high above the gulch. "And as long as Lew didn't set it, I'm glad to see it burn."

  "I don't suppose anybody will really ever know if this strike turned out to be old man Adams' lost diggings men have been hunting for ever since the Apaches wiped out part of his party," the gunman said. "I hear tell our friend Harrow actually has quite a pile of gold buried up there around that house. You reckon old Bear Paw's ghost is up there poking around in the flames trying to find some of the gold Tom stole from him after he murdered the old man here at their first camp in the gulch?" he added with a sardonic chuckle.

  He chuckled again as an angry snarl came from the darkness over on the other side of the door, below the window. Stovers said grimly, "I wouldn't know about things like that, mister. But one thing I do know: unless you shoot straighter now than you ever did with that hired gun there'll be some more ghosts around here in a damn' few seconds. Here they come!"

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  They came, wolf swift. Lean black shapes in the moonlight, riding as though they were a part of their hardy Apache ponies. Four of them with old hats whose brims were pulled down hard around their necks, and one in the blood-caked shirt of a dead man. Emitting ages-old animal cries that froze the blood of their victims.

  One moment you only heard them coming hard for the kill. The next moment they were there and at their deadly work. Before Joe Stovers and the others could get their guns into operation a swift shadow flashed in and sank a lance deep into the soft belly of one of the rearing, frightened stage horses.

  Stovers fired slowly and carefully at the dark figures now swirling in the narrow, moonlit street; at the same instant the new .45 in Ace Saunders' right hand almost split his eardrums with its concussion. The Apache who'd lanced the now-screaming horse toppled out of the rawhide saddle and Saunders' voice said beside the former sheriff and marshal, "Funny. Tom had this gun made special for me at the factory when he went back East and they sent it by mail. A little present, he said. First time I've used it on a man."

  He fired again and said, "Damn, I missed that one. A little shaky, I guess."

  Amid the crash of pistols and answering wild shots from .44-40 repeaters in the hands of Loco's broncos came Sam Blaze Face's bellow, muffled by the walls of his dive.

  "Hurrah for the Cherokees! Who says they cain't lick them 'Paches?"

  The fight was over in less than two minutes. A scream that probably was a war command from Loco broke out and the Apaches reacted instinctively. They broke away and spurred on up the gulch, gone as fast and as suddenly as they had appeared.

  Somebody let out a gasp as though he'd been holding his breath and there came a scrape of feet in the darkness as the men rose. Out in the street a dark, almost naked figure was crawling around on its hands and knees. A spurt of fire leaped from the doorway of the saloon and the Indian fell flat and lay shuddering.

  "You women all right?" Joe Stovers called in the darkness.

  "We're all right, Joe," came Clara's voice in answer from the floor. "Anybody hurt?"

  "I don't think so." Stovers was using the plunger to clear empty shells and reload.

  Judge Eaton said, "I give fervent thanks to the Creator they are gone."

  "They're not gone," Stovers said grimly, punching in fresh cartridges. "They were just paying their first installment on a debt to Tom Harrow for the guns he sold them. They ain't through."

  He jerked loose the bar and opened the door and ran outside. The lanced horse was down in harness, kicking, and the others were plunging frantically. Stovers ran in, leveled the pistol, and shot the wounded horse through the head. He ran for the leaders and had them by the bit when a big red horse came along the street at a thundering run, a tall man high in the stirrups. Kerrigan hauled up and jumped down, looking about him.

  "Joe, everybody all right?"

  "Far as I know. Where'd you come from, Lew?"

  Tersely Kerrigan told him. "I ducked out of sight when they ran by. Couldn't do anything else. Hated to leave Pirtman without talking with you, Joe."

  "I'm damned glad you did. I think Eaton lost his mind today. Can't figure it any other way. He stripped me of all authority, Lew. I'm out. Jeb and Ace Saunders are inside with new badges on…"

  His booted feet swept from the ground and his stocky figure hung high for a moment as he fought the plunging horses, and then Lew Kerrigan had hold of them too.

  They fought them down and together held them, and then the figure of Ace Saunders loome
d up with Jeb Donnelly beside him.

  "Free drinks on the house!" bellowed the voice of the Cherokee from across the street. "But there ain't much left and then I'm outa business. Come one, come all. Ladies welcome!"

  Kerrigan had released his grip on the reins and bits while Stovers fumbled at tie ropes on the lead horses' hames. The horses were trying to twist sideways to get away from the dead animal, down on its side in the midst of them.

  "Hold it, Saunders," Kerrigan said coldly, hand over his gun butt. "This is not the time or place. Anything you want settled can be taken care of later. We've got trouble enough."

  "Donnelly, you and Saunders arrest that man," Judge Eaton shouted angrily. "Put him in handcuffs!"

  "Jeb will get himself killed if he tries it," the gunman informed the livid-faced judge coolly. "He tried to draw on Kerrigan once before and got his jaw caved in. If he tries it now, I'll kill him, and that goes for you too, Tom. I settle my own scores in my own way and this ain't the time."

  Kerrigan left them and the three guards breaking the dead animal out of harness and walked to the dark opening of the courtroom door. He saw three dim shadows and looked at them in surprise.

  He said, "This is no place for you to be," and then wished he hadn't. Two, or all three, had come on his account.

  "I think we can risk a light now, if there's one back there."

  "What about those Indians, Lew?" Clara asked. "Won't they be back?"

  "I doubt it at the moment. Their horses were still running hard up the gulch and out of rifle range. They don't like to fight in darkness and there'll be no need to."

  "Why do you say that?" Tom Harrow snapped bluntly. "Or did they tell you all about it before you followed them in?"

  Kerrigan took two steps forward and got him by the coat. He drew back his fist and smashed it hard into the hated features of the man who had sent him to prison. Harrow fell limply and Kerrigan said, "I can see enough in the dark, Tom, that you'd better not try to slide out that gun I took away from you in Yuma. Loco doesn't happen to be in position to force an attack. Take a look down there in the lower end of the gulch!"